Of course, what point is there in preserving a static environment if it
impovershes us all?
If environmentalitsts were more serious and honest that we need to make
*tradeoffs* someone might actually believe them.
Please, study the topic. You are responding to fools (and possibly,
K.Feete is, also).
One question at hand is how to persuade the US Congress to raise taxes
on gasoline for cars by 15 cents per gallon. That is the top end of
serious arguments that I have heard for what is needed to shift the US
to a better pattern. That amount is about one-sixth the variation in
gasoline prices I personally have experienced since the proposal came
up.
If the greens would show a bit more interest in having *markets*
not the elites in government decide how to best help the
environment, maybe they would get somewhere.
Again, there are lots of proposals by greens to do this. Please look
at the literature. Do not get distracted by fluff.
It is rather obvious -- I wrote my first essay on this in 1971 or
thereabouts -- that a government must enforce laws that convert
economic externalities into economic internalities.
This means either setting standards that must be met (i.e., the price
is the cost of being fined for a violation) or setting up a market
place with `goods' (such as pollution permits) that are bought and
sold. In either situation, the only mechanism that works is one
operated by a government, since there is nothing else.
The problem with markets that do not have government intervention of
some sort is that economic externalities are not priced.
That is the way the world is.
--
Robert J. Chassell [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Rattlesnake Enterprises http://www.rattlesnake.com
